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"Since I was a child, I have always loved drawing.
As an architect, I was trained to sketch on site in my first year of my studies. I have always considered sketching a wonderful tool in my job to understand things, more in the field of spatial relations than in their material aspect.
On the other hand, I have always brought a sketchbook with me in my travels as a much more effective way of keeping a memory than a photograph. But lately my travel sketches tended to be too few and too quick.
I have recently found Urban Sketchers, and then discovered the immense joy of sketching outside with no particular task. Reading Usk’s manifesto, I feel especially sensitive with the point of keeping a record of time and place, and I’m changing from sketching just architecture to understand the city as a big scenario for human activity.
I live in Málaga, a city in the south of Spain with more than half a million residents and 2,500 years of age; but also the center of a busy and lively metropolitan area, home of an active harbour and a big tourist destination. Now that I have two small children and I do not travel as much as before, I’m trying to show this mixture of old and new in my drawings. It is so rewarding to share my work with so many excellent artists and receive continuous feedback from other members! And, last but not least, to learn from other parts of the world.
I'm delighted to join Urban Sketchers."
• Luis' art on flickr.

Traveler in Tindouf. Dakhla, people in action

By Javier de Blas in Tindouf, AlgeriaBetween February and March 2015 I spent a month living with a Sahrawi family in their "haima" in the refugee camps of Tindouf. Every Tuesday, I'm posting here the notes and sketches I made about daily life in the camps.If there is any local word you don´t understand, please check in Local terminology post.18 to 23.03.2015

Of the nicest things that happened to me in Dakhla, was getting to know Balali, an artist and self-taught electronic technician, with a lot of talent. I stood in front of a huge and accurate portrait painted on a wall from an ID photo, I asked him how he done it. He replied that he had begun with the hair and worked his way downwards (wow! What a mental sense of proportion!)

A colleague tells me that I have known how to "trick him" into entering his house, because he receives us at the door and is very reserved, no one believes that we can get past the entrance. And it is here that I propose that we draw each other's portraits. Portrait, tea, talk. Great. I stay another day because I want to draw him in his study, but this time he does not let me in, farther than his electronics workshop. So brings out several of his paintings, leaning them against the wall. He's an amazing guy.

On another occasion two brickies come up to me asking me to take a picture of them. But I draw them instead and their colleagues die of laughter with the resemblance. I have drawn them exactly as they are.So I go back to visit Javier Arango, engrossed in his mural so I gave him a hand. I also draw a portrait of a security guard who thanks me so kindly..Another day I draw some market traders and there is lots of fun with the similarities. Some young people invite me to tea and ask me to draw them as well, but when I go about colouring in, one of them has disappeared and he answers on the cell phone to use the colors I want.I also stop to watch the distribution of butane bottles, the women rolling the bottles with their feet, the delivery cart and all that kind of stuff.